Getting to the top as a woman is hard work but worth it

Last month I was honoured to be named joint "First Woman of Retail and Consumer" at the annual First Women awards. These awards recognise pioneering women whose achievements open up opportunities for others. Receiving one is a great result not only for me but for the whole Good Energy team, particularly as they are for mainstream business, not simply our cosy environmental niche.

Being surrounded by successful women from major blue-chip organisations got me thinking. We hear so often how hard it is at the top for women (especially right now with the campaign in the UK to get more women into the boardrooms of top companies making the headlines) but my own experience is that while it is hard, it is also tremendously rewarding.

These award-winning pioneers, who run the whole gamut of business from science and engineering to finance and retail, show that it is possible and can lead to major recognition.

So what is it about these women that make them good leaders? I would argue that leadership qualities are not gender-specific. Leadership is about empowering people, enabling them to take risks, seeing opportunities that no one else "gets" and having the passion to see your vision through. None of these attributes is remotely related to gender.

Looking at the award winners, it is obvious that they have leadership qualities in spades. What they needed was the right environment to flourish. While I had the advantage of creating my own corporate culture as the founder of the company, many of the award winners have succeeded in very traditional business environments. But the face of business is slowly changing as family-friendly policies make a difference, ensuring that flexibility is built into the business culture. However, there is still a way to go before we get the work-life balance right - is it really necessary to do business on the golf course, at the weekend or late into the night?

I'm not saying it's easy even with the right environment. Anyone who works at a senior level in business has to make sacrifices, and we all have different amounts of time we are prepared to put in. We do it because we gain from it, both financially and personally. And in my case, there is another crucial element that drives me. I feel I am making a difference, enabling people to make an environmentally-sound choice in terms of where they source their energy. and hopefully fundamentally shifting the balance in favour of renewables in the UK.

So I would say to all those young women just embarking on careers in science, engineering or industry: now is a really exciting time to join the energy sector. In order to meet our carbon targets for 2020 we need many brains, both male and female. Women are still under-represented in our sector, particularly in scientific and engineering roles. So hear my call: we need you and it is a really exciting place to be right now!